The head of security stood outside the Governor’s office – Hoc Rem, as he recalled. As Brooks approached, the man let him in without a word, holding the door but making no move to follow him.
Brooks looked the man up and down out of curiosity. He was heavier set than most people he’d seen so far in the system, and as subtle as it was, it was an important detail. After many generations away from Earth, it was common for colonial humans to take on slightly different characteristics to better suit their conditions.
The man caught his look and gave him a warning glare.
Neither man said anything, but their looks conveyed more than words could have.
He would be a man to keep an eye on, he thought.
Stepping past the man, Brooks entered the office.
Nec Tede’s seat of governance was notably less beautiful than what Brooks had seen on New Begonia. It attempted some semblance of dignity, with its vaulted ceiling and arches carved and buffed to a mirror-like finish.
But the trophies, proclamations, monitors, and storage cubbies that lined every surface robbed it of any grandeur that it might have had. The lack of gravity meant none of it was ever out of reach, and the room seemed to serve as an archive for the colony as well as the Governor’s office.
“Your head of security does not seem to be from here,” Brooks commented to Nec Tede as he came in. “May I ask where he’s from?”
“You think so, huh? Well, he’s local, and there’s no man I trust more,” the Governor replied, eyeing him. “Now pop a sit. It’ll hold ya down.” The Governor gestured to a chair bolted onto the floor paneling.
Brooks saw that it was lined with touch fasteners, and decided against it, instead just holding onto the back to push himself to the floor in a standing position.
“You say that the CR has killed a person?”
“CR?” the Governor asked.
“We call them Cerebral Readers – they seem to have a kind of sixth sense for things that others cannot sense.”
“That, and they can kill people by lookin’ at ’em,” the Governor added grimly. “She did in the last sheriff, ya see. He came to question her about another death, but she wasn’t gonna listen. Just looked at him – and like that he had an aneurysm. Ugly kinda death.”
“And you’re certain it wasn’t a natural death?” Brooks asked. “I’ve never heard of a CR being able to cause harm.”
Tede did his rather disturbing grin again. “Captain,” he said. “Are you implying that I would lie about this?”
“I don’t know why you would,” Brooks replied. “But I have been sent to find out about this person.”
Tede stuck himself to his chair with a crackling sound from the touch fasteners. “Well, we can come back to that Captain. I have some other things you should hear about first.”
Brooks knew that the man was going to haggle with him for the CR. She wasn’t a human to him, or a criminal, he reckoned. She was a bargaining chip. “Go ahead,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.
“This colony here – we face a lot of troubles. Kicked out, not once, but twice from what was rightfully ours. We all had a proper legal claim to this system, Captain. Isn’t a single soul here or on the homeworld that would disagree. Yet here we are.”
Legally, the man had a point, Brooks knew. A colony was equally the property of all who set out to settle it. But there was the matter of what the democratic majority of that colony chose to do – and what a minority chose to do.
If they had left the rest of the colony to found this place, then they couldn’t now be making claims on the parts they had left behind.
“I sympathize, Governor, but I’m not sure why you’re telling me,” Brooks said flatly.
The Governor continued his push. “There are things we both want, Captain. How’d you like to bring another system back into the SU, huh? I’m sure it’d be a shiny pin on your cap. And you’d get what you want – your CR. She may be a criminal here, but bonds can be paid in other ways.”
“With membership in the SU?” Brooks asked.
“That’s just the first part. And trust me, you’ll be covered in glory. Saving the last vestige of good people in a system overrun by religious fanatics? You guys don’t care for this religious shit anymore – it’ll be an easy sell for ya.
“But what I need are colonists. It’s not like I want you to come in and start blasting the other colonies. I just want to make us the biggest, best colony. It’s why we even picked this god-forsaken rock, Captain. It’s big – big enough to be the start of a nice-sized space port. Your entry point into this system. When we control the trade coming through here, we can . . . get the other colonies to change their ways. Help them to move forward.”
His face turned to an ugly smile. “But I have to have the bodies. We’re not even 30,000 people – not even enough to be a viable population.”
Brooks stared at him for a long moment. “You’re free to apply for membership to the Sapient Union. You always have been. You have to meet the criteria for acceptance, however – and you are free to put out calls for colonists. As long as you disclose all conditions and laws, confirmed by an SU emissary.”
The man scowled. “That’s it? You’re not willing to work with me at all?”
“I just laid out the way in which it will happen, Governor. Now – when can I meet this CR?”
The man continued to scowl, staring at Brooks, and he realized that the man was trying to stare him down.
Brooks mentally tallied his odds. There were only twenty in his party, and this was a colony of nearly 30,000. Yet he did not feel afraid, not in the slightest.
The Governor blinked first. He pressed a button on his desk.
“Rem, tell ’em down in the jail that someone’s coming to see the seer.”
“Right away, Governor,” a voice returned.
For the first time Brooks heard the man’s voice. His accent was heavy, and nothing like the Governor’s – or anyone they’d encountered thus far in the Begonia system.
Definitely not local, and it explained a lot about why he hadn’t talked. For such an insular colony to have an outsider this high in command, especially in security, likely meant he was a mercenary.
If the Governor needed that, Brooks thought, then his control of the colony might be in question.
Nec Tede’s eyes had flickered away, but now they came back. “I’ll have someone take you down there.”
Other Terrestrial 